Recycling manure: No more horsing around with waste

When rainwater or runoff flows from Ventura County streets, fields and facilities into our waterways and oceans, it can carry pollution monitored and regulated by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.

The board's oversight of these regulations may get a lot stricter, following its meeting at 9 a.m. Thursday in Simi Valley City Council Chambers, 2929 Tapo Canyon Road.

One focus for regulators is horse manure. The Community for a Clean Watershed, which includes 10 cities and the county of Ventura, lists composting on site or donating manure to community gardens or nurseries among "best management practices" but acknowledges that manure piles often are not properly maintained. If piles dry out, biological activity slows, and manure builds up. If piles get too wet, runoff carries pollution wherever the water flows.

Locating composting areas on higher ground, surrounded by pasture or vegetated buffer strips, can create a natural filtration system for cleaning runoff. But horses' rate of "production" is steady and substantial, often requiring horse owners to subscribe to collection services.

Even those who pay for weekly bin collection by waste haulers must follow guidelines to avoid pollution. Use sturdy, insect-free waste containers without leaks. Store containers and collected manure on concrete or a plastic tarp. Cover manure during rain, and prevent water used to wash horses from flowing into streams.

A future option could be a facility to turn manure into compost and energy. A large-scale, high-tech composting facility is currently being proposed for a portion of the Limoneira farm between Santa Paula and Ventura. But that site's major technology is an anaerobic digestion system that does not favor manure as a raw material.

Because horse manure has already been digested once, some of its energy value is lost before arriving at a facility. Permits are in process, but manure could be excluded from the Limoneira facility, as it currently is from Ojai Valley Organics, Agromin's Oxnard composting site, Agromin's site at the Simi Valley Landfill and Peach Hill Soils.

Waste to Energy and the Ventura County Watershed Protection District and Integrated Waste Management Division employed a consultant, AECOM, for feasibility studies to determine the amount of manure and other organic discards potentially available to recycle. The consultant is producing a series of memoranda on the types of technology best suited to turn these wastes into resources such as energy and compost, and the characteristics a site should have to best handle the projected waste stream.

Whether these studies eventually lead to a manure management facility depends on many factors. Will horse owners currently trying to manage manure on site instead agree to pay collectors to haul it to a recycling facility? Will upcoming water quality regulations make on-site management of manure too difficult or make paying for hauling a more attractive option? Will independent operators come up with facilities, technologies or other unanticipated alternatives? Much remains to be seen by those who keep an eye on the environment.

A new local group, the Horse and Livestock Watershed Alliance, is planning to make a presentation at Thursday's hearing. The group includes "horse rescue activists, boarding stable managers, cattlemen, organic food growers fertilizing with compost from manure, and the Ventura Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business," according to Akiva Werbalowsky, the alliance's collaboration director who can be reached at 205-3821.

"Good faith agreements and practical efforts can enhance watershed health more quickly and at less cost than relying only upon effective enforcement of future regulation," Werbalowsky said.

David Goldstein is an environmental analyst for the Ventura County Public Works Agency. Representatives of government or nonprofit agencies who want to submit articles on environmental topics for this column should contact Goldstein at david.goldstein@ventura.org.